DAVIS, CA—The Joint Center for Housing Studies at Harvard said late last year that funding for affordable housing is now shifting to local and state government sources. According to the Joint Center, one of the the local/state measures of the last few years is Proposition 1, which allocated $4 billion in bonds for housing programs for low-income residents when it was approved by voters.

Moreover, several cities and counties turned to ballot measures to approve bonds for funding affordable housing efforts including several counties in the Portland, OR metropolitan region ($652 million), Austin ($250 million), Berkeley, CA ($135 million), Charlotte ($35 million) and Chapel Hill, NC ($10 million). Smaller cities turned to taxes or fees to fund affordable housing including in East Palo Alto, CA (commercial office tax, estimated $1.7 million revenue), West Marin, CA (hotel tax of an estimated $1.3 million), Telluride, CO (property tax of an estimated $554,000) and Bellingham, WA (property tax of an estimated $4 million).

As with many California areas, Davis, home to University of California-Davis, also faces a homeless crisis. According to a 2019 point-in-time count, the city had a 20% increase in the number of individuals experiencing homelessness on a given night compared to 2017.